CHAPTER XXI
LONG RANGE SHOOTING
The moment the bullet leaves the muzzle of the pistol, it begins to fall, owing to the force of gravity.
The faster it is going the further it goes before this drop is sufficient to be noticeable. Gravity acts through time, so if a bullet goes twice as fast as another, it goes twice as far before it has dropped the same distance as the slower bullet.
The big bullet of the duelling pistol has more air resistance than the .22 bullet of the American pistols, also it has comparatively a much smaller charge, so it begins to drop more rapidly and at shorter range.
The duelling pistol is sighted for twenty-five metres as that is the duelling distance (twenty-seven yards, three inches).
It hits where you aim, therefore, at that distance, it shoots practically the same at the nearer distances.
Beyond the twenty-five metres, however, it begins to drop very rapidly. I have watched where the bullet strikes when the man target is missed in an open field. The bullet strikes the ground less than a hundred yards off, showing that it has dropped the height of a man’s shoulder (say over four feet).